« You know, » he said almost gaily, « when I have a child with the woman I love, then I will help you. But this one… He waved as if to refuse a delivery he hadn’t ordered. « I don’t know. »
And he returned, greeted by congratulations and photos, to the place where everything was still going well in his life.
We stayed on the steps. Maddie was silent. Then she raised her face and asked softly:
« Mom, is this really my father? »
I looked at her and replied in the same soft voice,
« Biologically, yes. But a father? A father is the one who stays. »
She nodded as if she already knew.
We walked to the car. I was holding his hand and I didn’t look back once.
I didn’t cry. I did what mothers do when they are taken away: I turned my pain into a to-do list.
To understand why I knew where to find Brandon and why my child ended up on the steps of a party that wasn’t his, you have to go back to the beginning of the story.
I didn’t move to Columbus because I dreamed of a big city. I moved because I had to go somewhere.
My grandmother raised me. Not helped, not just watched – she raised me. As one raises a tree to face the wind, supporting it, tying it up, sometimes cursing time. My parents were almost absent. Grandma was everything: the house, the discipline, the first aid kit, and the only person who could tell me, in a tone that sounded right, « You’re going to make it. »
I studied nursing and worked as much as possible. Sleepless nights, weekends, demands of others, blood of others, suffering of others. Strangely, all of this seemed easier to me than managing my own life.
I didn’t like nightclubs. The noise, the crowd, the bodies of strangers too close. I was the kind of girl who was dragged outside and said, « You need to relax, » and who pretended to be surprised when you stood with your back to the wall counting down the minutes before you could leave.
That evening, I was leaning against the wall, and that’s when he approached.
Brandon was one of those men who look like an advertisement. Flawless teeth, neat watch, confidence. He was smiling as if we already knew each other and were deciding where to continue the evening.
« Are you alone here? » he asked.
I said yes and instantly felt stupid, because every word spoken at her side made it sound like I was taking an exam that I hadn’t revised for.
He suggested going for some fresh air. Then to take a drive in the city, at night. I accepted, not out of convenience, but because he looked at me as if the word « no » did not exist in his eyes.
We were driving through the night streets and everything seemed unreal. The lights, the music in the car, his hand on the steering wheel. He spoke of himself with ease and out loud. The school trips, the way he managed everything. I remember saying something like, « You live so confidently. » And he laughed.
« Why not? My father… »
Then he named a position like a password to open a locked door. His father was an important figure in the state traffic police community, not just an officer. One of the senior officials, someone who decided the fate of everyone.
Brandon said it with the same pride that some people display when they say, « I built everything myself. » Except that he had not built anything. He was simply born into the right family.
« If anything happens, they’ll always get me out of there, » he said. « You can’t even imagine. »
I did have an idea, and for some reason, it made my blood run cold.
He left the highway to take a quiet road outside the city. Fields, darkness, a few scattered lights. A place where no one asks questions, because no one sees.
« It’s sunny here, » he said, and he turned off the music.
It was beautiful in the American way, in these great deserted spaces: an immense sky, the smell of the earth, a silence that catches your ears.
And that’s when it happened.
I’m not going to embellish things. It wasn’t romantic. It was a deliberate choice, on his terms.
And the strangest thing is that afterwards, he looked at me and seemed really surprised.
« Are you serious? » he asked. « What? Am I your first? »
I nodded and immediately regretted it. I would have liked to go back in time and lie. Not out of shame, but out of survival instinct.
He smiled smirked.
« I’ve never had this, » he says as if someone handed him a rare toy.
Then he took me home, took my number out of politeness. I knew what that meant, but deep down, there was a silly hope.
We may have seen each other twice, and these dates were quite strange. He was warm as long as he was interested.
I looked at him as one looks at someone who, suddenly, seems to embody the meaning of things.
And then he got bored.
You can feel it when someone is still there, but they’re already somewhere else. When the answers are shorter. When your messages are read, but go unanswered.
And one day, he simply disappeared.
At first I called him cautiously, then several times, then with this feeling of anxiety where you don’t want to seem desperate but panic is already gripping you.
« Are you okay? » I texted. « Everything is fine… »
It sounds, it rings, it rings.
Once, I called and a woman answered.
« The Caldwell residence, » she says calmly.
Residence, no hello. Residence.
I froze.
« Uh, I’m looking for Brandon. »
« He’s gone, » she says as if announcing the weather.
Until the end of the summer language program. The Caribbean. The Caribbean.
While I was counting money for gas and wondering if I could afford better medicine for my grandmother, Brandon was improving his language skills on an island because his father wanted to ensure a comfortable future for him and the son had to look like it.
I hung up and sat on the floor in the hallway. Not very elegant, not at all theatrical; I was just sitting, as if my legs had given out.
For a week, I cried silently into my pillow so that Grandma wouldn’t hear me, because she was already at the end of her strength. She would have understood, but I didn’t want her to suffer for me.
Then I pulled myself together.
Things happen. Forget it. Move on.
And I almost believed it.
And then one morning, I realized that it had been a long time since I had had a normal period. I was late.
I tried to convince myself that it was stress. I’m a doctor. I know things happen. I can rationalize. That’s my gift: to explain to myself what I refuse to admit.
The test showed two lines.
I stared at them and felt something come over me. Neither joy nor horror — something in between.
And my first thought was absolutely stupid.
That’s a reason to see him again.
You understand? I was so naïve. I saw my pregnancy as an opportunity to talk.
I waited until the fall because I was told it would be back at the end of the summer.
He came back, but not to me.
I dialed his number. He didn’t answer right away. When he picked up the phone, he recognized me. And I think he was even a little happy. He was happy to know that someone remembered him.
I told him I was pregnant.
Silence.
He then suggested that we meet at a café near his campus, where he was studying to become a lawyer, as his father liked to say.
I prepared for this meeting as if I were for a final exam. I put on a dress that still fits. Light makeup. I arrived 30 minutes early and stared at the door, as if he was going to come in and say something interesting.
Brandon was late.
He sat down and went straight to the serious business.
« Sorry that happened, » he began.
He could apologize for free, like with a vending machine. Insert the card, receive the message.
« I’m so sorry you have to deal with this, » he continued, looking over my shoulder. « But at what stage is it? »
« Eleven weeks, » I said.
He nodded like I said 8 minutes.
« We can still end the project, » he said.
I didn’t even understand the meaning immediately.
« What? »
« Don’t delay, » he says, already convinced. « There are Anderson private clinics. They will take care of you quickly. Don’t worry about the cost. I’ll take you right away. »
I sat there in disbelief.
During the summer, I had gotten used to the idea that I was going to be a mother. I had already started to love this little being in me.
I told grandmother that.
Grandma was silent for a moment. Then she started crying and taking her drops for the heart. She wanted another life for me. Yes. She simply dreamed that I would be happy.
But she didn’t say, « Get rid of that. » She said, « If that happens, we’ll manage. But don’t count on him, honey. »
At the time, I was still doing it.
« I won’t do that, » I told Brandon.
He didn’t even get angry. He was just tired, as if I had complicated his life.
« Listen, » he said, leaning forward. « You choose that, but I don’t participate in it. »
« It’s your child, » I whispered.
He took an envelope out of his pocket and placed it on the table.
« This is enough for the procedure, » he said. « I did my part. From now on, it is your responsibility. »
I stared at the envelope and felt nauseous. Not because of pregnancy, but because of humiliation.
I don’t remember if I picked it up on the spot or if I walked out and left it on the table. I was as if paralyzed. I only remember one thing: when I came out, the air was cold and, for the first time, I was really scared. Not for me, for the baby.
Maddie was born in an ordinary city hospital. No VIP suite, no photographer or balloons: just me, my grandmother and an exhausted doctor who had already seen hundreds of women like me.
She was magnificent. Very small. And when they put it on my chest, for the first time in a long time, I had the feeling that something in this world was finally in order.
And then the doctor said words that make even medical professionals tremble.
« Your baby has a congenital heart defect. »
It was not necessary to operate immediately. Immediately.
This sentence is only a delayed alarm.
Otherwise, Maddie was healthy and warm. She smelled of milk. She squeezed my finger so tightly that it was as if she was clinging to life and had no intention of letting go of it.
My grandmother and I loved it.
Money has become a real problem. I couldn’t work anymore. The allowances were derisory. Everything from diapers to petrol was counted. Grandma deprived herself so much that it made me angry. She could have bought some good groceries, but she bought Maddie a toy.
And you know what’s strange? Even during those months, I never seriously considered going to Brandon. Not out of pride, but because I could hear his voice in my head.
You have made this choice. It’s your responsibility.
And somewhere in me, this toxic logic persisted. If I decided to give birth, I wasn’t allowed to ask the question.
Now that I’m older, I want to go back in time and slap the young girl I was. Not out of anger, but out of pity. Because it wasn’t pride. It was a feeling of being cornered.
Maddie didn’t grow up like an ordinary child. She grew like a little question mark.
At the age of four, she was reading. At the age of five, she was doing maths at CE1 or CE2 level. She asked a thousand questions: why is blood red, why don’t planes crash, why do people have different voices, why does the heart beat like this?
Sometimes I would look at her and think, ‘My God, keep you alive forever.’
And sometimes at night, while Maddie was sleeping, I would sit at the kitchen table and Google her diagnosis. And I felt like I had stopped breathing, too.
When Mattie started daycare, I was able to go back to work. I did nurse shifts that no one wanted. Grandma would pick up Maddie, feed her, read her stories, and teach her how to play chess. Yes, chess. Maddie loved to think.
Life gradually resumed its course. We even allowed ourselves small pleasures: a pizza on Friday, a trip to the park, an ice cream just for fun.
And we almost thought that this immediate moment was going to last for years.
But that ended immediately when Maddie turned eight.
At first, she tired more quickly. Then, she complained more often of chest pains. Then, one day, she sat on the floor in the school hallway and told her teacher that she couldn’t breathe.
I went to get her and went straight to the doctor. The doctor looked at the results, then looked at me, and said, « She needs surgery quickly. »
He announced the prize. Even with insurance, even with payment plans, even doing whatever it takes, it was a sum that I had never had in my life and would never have.
I turned pale. Not figuratively, really. Because in those moments, the brain does only one thing: it starts to calculate what you can sell.
A house. We didn’t have any. A car? A drop in the bucket. A loan? No one would have given me that kind of loan and, in any case, there was no time.
The doctor, seeing my face, added, « The hospital offers assistance programs, free care, financial support, and community fundraising. A social worker will meet with you. We help families in this kind of situation. »
I nodded, holding back my tears mechanically.
Then he said, « But sometimes fundraising takes months, and in your case, the sooner the better. »
When we came out, Maddie remained brave.
See more on the next page
Advertisement
